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Gardening

Too many cucumbers!

(27 Posts)
NanaandGrampy Wed 24-Jul-19 18:59:18

I’ve already got 8 in the fridge from our solitary plant and you can only eat so much in a salad. Does anyone have any recipes or even ideas on how I can use up or preserve the rest ?

boho43 Wed 24-Jul-19 19:05:13

Chilled cucumber soup. Refreshing in this hot weather.

Pantglas1 Wed 24-Jul-19 19:06:17

Cucumber & philly sandwich, smoked salmon & cucumber sandwich, chilled cucumber soup, multi veg soup, smoothies, cucumber relish.......should get rid of a few!

seacliff Wed 24-Jul-19 19:08:12

oh lovely....Philly and cucumber sandwiches. Could you do a facemask? not sure how, but would be refreshing

RosieLeah Wed 24-Jul-19 19:11:07

Cucumbers are not just for eating...they can be used on the outside of the body too...eye-masks, face-masks, skin toners.

Resurgam123 Wed 24-Jul-19 19:13:01

Too many cucumbers? lots of tomatoes? tinned are ok and make Gazpacho. Garlic to taste .
Buy some baguettes .
Chill the liquidised veg.
Look up a recipe and it is lovely summer soup. It freezes there are loads of recipes.
I could eat lots of it.

phoenix Wed 24-Jul-19 19:18:58

Pickle some? I've successfully done this, albeit many years ago.

Fennel Wed 24-Jul-19 19:26:02

Cucumbers are similar to courgettes.
When I'm feeling energetic I make a sort of savoury loaf:
Make a batter with eggs flour s&p and a little veg oil.
Add a finely chopped onion.
Grate cucumbers, carrots, potatoes and add to the batter.
Bake in oiled loaf tins, or foil containers, in a hot oven until risen and browned. About an hour.
This is a nice side dish for cold meat or fish.

quizqueen Wed 24-Jul-19 19:27:37

Add them to fruit smoothies, give some away.

Calendargirl Wed 24-Jul-19 20:52:21

I make soup, but not cold. I freeze it ready for winter.

NanaandGrampy Wed 24-Jul-19 21:09:44

Thanks all! I’m going to try all these ?

MiniMoon Wed 24-Jul-19 21:17:16

We've been giving them away. Ours are lovely, but we've got far too many. We've only got one plant too.

Blinko Wed 24-Jul-19 21:58:22

Bet they're dead cheap in the shops now, as well.

Calendargirl Wed 24-Jul-19 22:31:46

Blinko.
In Tescos today, Spanish cucumbers 65p.
DH could not believe they couldn’t source British ones.
Also all the different tomatoes were Spanish, Polish or Dutch.
No sign of UK ones.
And the salad potatoes were from Israel.

PageTurner Wed 24-Jul-19 22:50:03

I make this easy recipe every summer.

Homemade Refrigerator Pickles
1 cup white vinegar. (8 ounces)
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups white sugar
6 cups thinly sliced cucumbers
1 cup thinly sliced onion
1 cup sliced green bell pepper
Celery seed and mustard seed to taste

Place cucumbers, onion, pepper, celery seeds and mustard seeds in a large bowl.

In medium size sauce pan over medium heat, bring vinegar, salt, and sugar to a boil. Boil about 10 minutes or until sugar is dissolved.
Pour mixture over veggies and stir to combine all ingredients.
Transfer to a container with a lid and store in the refrigerator. Cucumbers will keep for about three weeks.

This is an old recipe. I remember both my mother and grandmother making it.

NanaandGrampy Thu 25-Jul-19 07:35:04

I’m going to give that a go Pageturner !!thank you

merlotgran Mon 05-Aug-19 13:16:53

I have found a Thai pickled cucumber recipe and will be giving that a go later on today as I also have cucumber fest going on.

Will report back.

lemongrove Mon 05-Aug-19 13:20:41

I have a courgette fest going on .....unsure why I grow them as I always end up with far too many.

merlotgran Mon 05-Aug-19 13:33:12

Same here, lemon. I gave away a carrier bag full at the weekend and it's hardly made a dent in the glut.

Ratatouille for the freezer is my usual way of dealing with them but my tomatoes haven't caught up yet so I may have to resort to tinned.

I find those plastic Chinese take-away cartons are a perfect size for two and stack neatly so it's a good way of re-cycling them.

lemongrove Mon 05-Aug-19 13:42:07

My tomatoes seem slow this year, they are ripening one at a time! You’d think, with all the heat they would be ready by now.

merlotgran Mon 05-Aug-19 16:12:53

Yes. Masses of fruit but ripening one at a time. Very frustrating.

I've just given them all a good feed with stinky liquid comfrey so hopefully that will speed things up a bit.

Juliette Mon 05-Aug-19 16:36:45

Spiralised and stir fried they taste exactly like courgettes.

Cucumberetti.

NanaandGrampy Mon 05-Aug-19 16:43:41

I tried the PageTurner , Grampy says theyre not bad - high praise indeed !!

For courgettes, I julienne them and freeze them, then when I need a vegetable side I finely chop some onion, a little garlic and some bacon chopped up or lardons, throw in the courgettes and fry off ( don't use any oil or anything ) , they brown off and are delicious.

Calendargirl Mon 05-Aug-19 19:31:53

Don’t want to brag, but our produce is coming on in leaps and bounds. I put a little table at the gate with an honesty jar and sell off surplus.

Today have sold 1 large cucumber, 1 small cucumber, 2 punnets courgettes, 4 punnets cherry tomatoes, 4 punnets large tomatoes.

We eat loads of them ourselves.

??

Grandma2213 Tue 06-Aug-19 00:57:36

My 7 year old DGD loves cucumbers so I planted two plants which got shredded in a massive hailstorm. I planted two more which are now producing lots of cucumbers. She loves eating them and is so excited she is giving them to friends and neighbours. She especially likes the bendy ones. The shops may be full of them Blinko but there is no comparison in taste! Sadly no one else in the family likes them so DGD and I are eating them with everything!

Next we are waiting for the green bean plant she brought from school (Actually it was waterlogged and dead so I had to buy more seeds and plant a new one ... Happily the warm weather is making it grow centimetres every day!)